Because of the scarcity of petroleum fuels and their costs and the prospects for continued rising costs, much attention lately has been directed at solar energy and its possible applications for providing needed energy. As a result solar energy has been successfully used in a wide variety of applications ranging from residential heating to drying agricultural products.
In the area of animal husbandry and heating animal housing structures, it would seem that solar energy would have significant potential. In this regard, consider poultry production for example. The production of poultry requires a source of energy for maintaining a suitable environmental temperature within the poultry housing structure during most of the year in certain regions throughout the United States.
Prior to the energy crisis and the beginning of substantial rises in cost in petroleum fuels, a conventional broiler house was built at a relatively low cost and had a minimum amount of insulation. Over the past few years the increase in the price of energy, feed, gas and electricity has dictated a change in housing designs. Now one finds poultry production structures with greater insulation and with automatic control ventilation. As contrasted to poultry houses of twenty years ago, poultry structures today tend to be totally enclosed with significant automatic environmental controls provided.
Presently, most of the energy for maintaining poultry house temperature during the first few weeks of a bird's life is provided by fossil fuel-liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). As the bird gets older, the natural heat from the bird's body becomes greater and eventually this becomes a major source for heating the production house.
Therefore, there is and continues to be a need for energy efficient housing structures for animals such as broilers.